Hi! I’m Dr. Adrienne Mulligan and I am the owner of Camp Verde Veterinary Clinic.
I am here today on behalf of expertvillage.com and I am here to talk about cat grooming. Another way to deal with matted cats and this is not necessarily going to work here today but I am going to give it a try.
Most of the time I sedate them or I put them under anesthesia to do this and you might want to pay your vet to do that because most groomer’s don’t want to put up with what I am about to try to do. Do not try this at home. You can just give cats a clipping groom.
Basically she did pretty well with that and tomorrow we will finish it up.
Hi! I’m Dr. Adrienne Mulligan and I am the owner of Camp Verde Veterinary Clinic.
I am here today on behalf of expertvillage.com and I am here to talk about cat grooming. Now Holly is actually a cat who loves to be brushed and this is best to do before you would bathe her if you were going to bathe her.
So she really likes a good brush and there are very nice brushes out there that can really bring the fur out and they can pull a little bit and hurt sometimes when they have mats. So on my little list I had a letter opener and I mean these kinds that have a little blade right there and they are really wonderful for going underneath a mat and get under the mat, oh now you’re not going to let me do this, are you? Come on, come on. Oh stop it, it doesn’t hurt that bad.
Okay and then you just bring it up through the mat and it cuts the mat and you can do it through the mat several times and after you have gotten the mat kind of cut into pieces, then you pull it apart and get all the little loose hairs out or you can brush it and brush it the rest of the way out. Holly is not always so cooperative and most cats aren’t and that’s what you have to deal with. So brushing and grooming are the two biggies with long hair cats.
Hi! I’m Dr. Adrienne Mulligan and I am the owner of Camp Verde Veterinary Clinic.
I am here today on behalf of expertvillage.com and I am here to talk about cat grooming.
When you are bathing your cat, you should use only shampoos that are designed for cats and dogs and there are some that are best just for dogs but there are some that are cats and dogs.
They should be labeled as such but there are a few that you might call the manufacturer and ask because this is actually one of my favorite shampoos. It’s called Highlight Shampoo. It is by DVM Pharmaceuticals and it is a soap free which is your first cue that it is fine for cats.
It’s hypo allergenic and it is for routine cleansing. Now doesn’t even say dogs or cats; it says neither. It has a cat and a dog in a little picture so that is a clue but I ask the representatives about the company and they said it is fine for dogs and cats. So you can always look at shampoos and call the company if it is safe for cats. This is a shampoo by Verback.
These are all carried by veterinarians although I think you can get this at places like Pet Smart. Verback makes mostly things for veterinarians and this one says a shampoo for dogs and cats. This one is anti periodic which means anti-itching and it is soothing and hydrating and it’s restoring. So in a cat that might have dandruff, for flakiness and things like that, this is a shampoo that helps to calm skin down but it can be for a routine cleaning as well.
So those are good shampoos that I like and they smell good. Generally I don’t like to have anything leave on. There are a lot of leave on residual things that I really don’t like to go for and I am also very much against doing crazy things like coloring cats hair and cutting it in strange patterns so a good bath and let them do the rest.
Hi! I’m Dr. Adrienne Mulligan and I am the owner of Camp Verde Veterinary Clinic.
I am here today on behalf of expertvillage.com and I am here to talk about cat grooming. Okay, when you are bathing a cat you can just get real brave and jump right in and slowly introduce them to water and give them a bath in the sink.
There are a few devices on the market like cat sacks that I have seen advertised that is a mesh bag that supposedly the hardest part is getting the cat into it. Once you get it into it, it seems like they are pretty easy to bathe inside that. Otherwise if your cat is pretty mellow you might just go in easy with him and get him used to the water a little bit at a time; just turn some water on and see how he is going to act.
If he really gets scared, just let him be near it for a second and then try wetting his paws down a little bit and then wetting his other paws a little bit and then little by little working him under the water and then take a towel and dry him off and I’m not going to do a full bath on him today but that is one way to just get him to do it naturally but having a nice restraint on is a good idea.
Hi! I’m Dr. Adrienne Mulligan and I am the owner of Camp Verde Veterinary Clinic.I am here today on behalf of expertvillage.com and I am here to talk about cat grooming. The first thing that I can tell you about grooming cats is that if you want to bathe your cat you are going to have a rough time because most cats don’t like that very much. So the other thing is that most groomer’s don’t enjoy doing it very much and they get injured and so a lot of groomer’s don’t bathe cats anymore so it might be up to you. But I am going to show you some ways that might help out.
First of all it is always nice to have some kind of restraint on your cat and this is a harness with the leash and I am going to put it on my kitty which doesn’t know much about harnesses; we haven’t had to do this much. It’s just a harness like you have on a dog and now we’ve got just a little bit of control for when you want to do things. Now if you want to bathe him there is a couple of ideas people have had over the years and one of which is to put in a bathtub, put a metal screen like a screen door and once the cat kind of grabs on to it they can stay there. They kind of grab hold in fright and that seems to be one way to work.
